BobVila.com

A decorative wood valance adds charm to your home and you can make one yourself. Here's how: Draw the design of your choice onto a piece of rigid cardboard and carefully cut it out with a sharp utility knife. Then, transfer the template onto a piece of clear finish lumber, leave a quarter inch extra along the edge. Now, cut out your design with a saber saw and smooth off the rough edges with a file and sander.

Bob Ryley is in the garage workshop in this episode helping Bob build a planter box for the sunroom. Using a compass to draw intersecting circles, Ryley creates a simple pattern for the legs of the box. Next, he scores the line with a knife before cutting with a saber saw. The legs are joined to the main boards with biscuits and some wood glue. To make the end pieces, Ryley again uses a compass to create the outline, and then cuts the pattern with a saber saw. The end pieces are attached with glue and some nails. Finally, the bottom board is laid inside the box and nailed in place. When it's complete, Bob and Ryley move it to its new home under the picture window and add some potted plants.

Bob meets Ryley outside the Victorian style house in Massachusetts to help him with the railing. Ryley starts with two by six vertical grain fir for the top railing and routes out a ridge for the balusters and applies standard moulding to the sides. Bob and Ryley head back to the workshop to create the balusters. Ryley traced the pattern from an antique baluster to create the design to create a form. They trace the pattern onto individual pieces of wood and cut out the pattern with a band saw and scroll saw. The meticulous hand cutting is what leads to the beautiful antique pattern. Back out at the site Ryley shows Bob a tip for dealing with the quirkiness of antique wood. He builds a template by scribing the angle on scrap wood then cuts the railing using this form. Bob uses sugar pine for the corner angles.

In Naples, Florida, Bob helps Al Stiles build a jig valence over a kitchen window to match the decorative stiles on the kitchen hutch.